Bullying is a nation crisis. I do not know one person in the world hasn’t experienced its destructive nature. What is even worse is that the teacher either won’t or can’t help. Their old methods of “sticks and stone may break my bones but words can never hurt me,” don’t work anymore. With the rise in the social networking, the bullying won’t stop in the classroom anymore. I have had friends who have thought about suicide as a result of the bullying they have received. I just don’t know how to help them. What can I do that could stop the bullies when I myself cannot stop the bullies tormenting me?
Maybe I should tell my story. I have moved around multiple times and since the 5th grade, I have gone to 3 different schools. And at every school I had been called a lesbian by the bullies. At the first school I just brushed it off; I mean it was just one person who thought it, right? Wrong. At the second school, it took me a little longer to brush it off. But the girl who called me that wasn’t well liked and I could see that she was bulling me to make herself feel better in her own twisted way. But at the last school I couldn’t shake it off. The girl was extremely popular and had been my best friend in a school full of strangers. Plus this had been the third time. Was I a lesbian? Or was it just something about me that gave the appearance of being a lesbian? How else could three people from three widely different states and three widely different cultures think the same thing? Maybe they saw something I don’t see.
Eventually I got away from the girl and brushed off her insults and found real friends. But I can no longer trust those anti-bullying videos where they tell students that the best thing to do is to contact a teacher. Well, what will that do? All it will do is make the bully have even more power over you by proving that you are afraid of them. The best thing in my opinion is to just ignore them, brush them off, and then if it comes to the point of physical bullying, tell a teacher.